Infamous Review

Lightning crashes.

Spider-Man 2 the videogame will always hold a special place in my heart. After decades of games taking superheroes, assigning their abilities halfhearted meters, and sticking them in beat'em ups, Spider-Man 2 put you behind the web-head's mask and let you loose on an open-world. The game had citizens packing side missions, enemies roaming the city, and more. Of course, it also had a bunch of problems, but it at least gave the world a glimpse of what a superhero game could be. Surely, someone would pick up the idea, polish it, and run with it… right?

Five years later, Sucker Punch has dusted of that blueprint and improved the hell out of it. Infamous is one of the best offerings on the PlayStation 3 to date.

When you pick up the controller, you'll be dropped into the shoes of Cole. He used to be your everyday bike messenger, but that all ended when he was delivering a package and the thing went off in his hands. The ensuing blast leveled a gigantic portion of the city and left Cole in a coma. When he wakes up, everything is screwed -- there's a plague that's making people sick, the government's quarantined Empire City, gangs have seized control of the three islands that make up the metropolis, and -- most importantly to our tale -- Cole finds that he's been blessed/cursed with electricity-based superpowers. Now that you're in control of a guy who can shoot lightning bolts from his hands, fall from the highest buildings without taking any damage, and throw cars into the air with his trusty shockwave, what are you going to do?

See, Infamous is an open-world game. Once you've gone through the basic tutorial -- typical third-person controls with L1 bringing up your reticle for aiming your R1 lightning bolt and face button specials -- Empire City is yours to do what you want with. You can go out on story missions, take on the random bad guys camped out on rooftops, tackle some side missions, or just run and jump from rooftop to rooftop. Now, as you get going, you'll need to get Empire City up and running again. At the most basic level, this means Cole needs to head into the city's sewers and manually reestablish the connections between transformers (see: he grabs the working electrical box, grabs the one that isn't working, and lets the juice flow through him to get the city back online). When you do this, you'll gain a new superpower so that by the end of the game you'll have access to 16 abilities such as calling down a massive lightning storm that obliterates enemies as well as an electrical shield you can use to block incoming attacks.

Now, the powers are going to get a lot of press leading up to the launch of Infamous, but one of the most endearing things about this game is Empire City itself. You'll only get to see the pre-blast skyline for a second when you start the title, but the post-blast world is one of wonder and heartache. Now, before things went to hell, Cole was a bit of an urban explorer. This means he's got mad skills in terms of his climbing ability. Everything in this city is designed to be scalable. You'll run at a wall, jump and cling to a windowsill, pull yourself up and leap to a pipe, climb to the roof, and run across a power line connecting the rooftop to another structure. Now, this could've easily turned into a frustration-fest if Sucker Punch demanded precision jumps the likes of Lara Croft, but instead it gave Cole the gift of agility and made it so the man knows to grab on to whatever he can. Within seconds of playing, I was pulling off impressive leaps and truly enjoying myself.

Explosions look good but often hurt innocents.

As you turn on the power to various sections of the city, the power lines go live and allow you to skate on them while kicking up a wave of juice. Combine that with Cole's later-level ability to glide via Static Chargers, and you've got the ingredients for one of the most original city-traversal mechanics I've ever seen. Seriously, in the beginning of the game I was a bit worried about how long it would take to navigate the islands without the ability to fly or run at super-speed, but once Cole got to the point of sliding around on the train tracks and chaining together power line moves, I was in love.

Beyond the way you actually play in Empire City, the burg blew me away because of how alive it is. Sure, there are bystanders waving their arms to signify side missions, but how many times was I searching for a blast shard only to have someone run up to me and beg me to come heal a friend? Perhaps I'm just a softy, but the man crying in the street lamenting the loss of his wife and the girl repeating over and over again that she was only supposed to be here one day got to me. If you get caught up in how fun it is to zap bad guys and glide around town, it's these moments coupled with the out of control fires and destroyed vehicles that remind you that you're living in a city that has just gone through its darkest hour and doesn't know how to get back on its feet.